If there were only six men who entered the property, there’s one more to go.
Reyna’s nowhere in sight, so I run up the stairs and go from room to room, checking them one by one to ensure they’re empty. When I’ve confirmed they are, I trot back down the stairs, then hurry through the remaining rooms on the ground floor. They’re all empty, too.
Then I hear an angry voice coming from a nearby salon, the last one still unsearched. It’s a voice I’d recognize anywhere.
“Go ahead, fucker. You’ll be doing me a favor. But I’ll see you again in hell, and then I’m going to cut off your balls and choke you with them.”
Reyna.
My heartbeat surges into overdrive. Moving fast but quietly, I stride over to the salon, gun in hand, and slow just outside the doorway.
When I glance in, my pounding heart skids to a dead stop.
Reyna stands in front of an unlit fireplace, eyes flashing with fury, chin lifted in defiance. A man stands across from her, about six feet away.
He’s pointing a semiautomatic hand gun at her chest.
A rifle lies on the floor beside him.
I think it’s the one she was carrying. He must’ve surprised her somehow and pulled it from her grip.
I say loudly, “Oy. Dickface.”
He jerks his head to the right.
I squeeze the trigger and put a bullet in his temple. He collapses like a rag doll into a heap on the floor.
Then something kicks me in the shoulder from behind.
“What the...?”
I spin around to find another masked guy in black crouched on one knee in the corridor, arms outstretched, holding a Glock semiauto in his grip. Before I can raise my weapon, a shot rings out.
Blood mists from his mask in a spray. He topples sideways, gun clattering against the marble, then lies still.
Breathless, Reyna runs up beside me. “It’s too bad you can’t count, Quinn. There were seven of them, not six.”
Too stunned to argue, I stare at her holding the rifle in her hands. “Did you just shoot a man to protect me?”
She looks at me, blinks, then winces. “Shit. Must’ve been a reflex.”
“Or maybe you were feeling gratitude for both times I saved your life in the last ten minutes.”
She scoffs. “Please. I didn’t need your help.” Then she gasps and her eyes grow wide.
“Don’t tell me. You just remembered you didn’t make me supper yet.”
“No, Quinn…” She reaches out and lightly touches my shoulder. “I think you’ve been shot.”
I look down at where she’s touching. A wisp of smoke rises from a small hole in the fabric of my jacket. The acrid smell of scorched silk hangs in the air.
Watching a ring of wetness grow larger around the hole, I sigh.
Fuck. This is my favorite suit.
12
Rey
“Let me take a look,” I tell Quinn, reaching for his lapel.
He brushes me off impatiently. “It’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, idiot. You have a hole in you. You’re bleeding. I can help.”
“I don’t need a nurse. Especially one who’s likely to stab me in the neck when I’m not looking.”
Realizing that arguing with him will get me nowhere, I give up. “Okay, Macho Man. Good luck with that nasty infection.”
He glowers at me. “I don’t have a nasty infection.”
“Not yet. But it’ll set in soon from the debris that entered the wound along with the bullet. You know, threads from your shirt and suit, bone fragments, burnt powder, all that fun stuff. The wound needs to be irrigated, disinfected, and stitched up or things will get ugly fast. You could end up dead.”
I try not to look too pleased by the thought, but I’m sure I fail.
He pauses to consider me for a beat. “Have much experience with bullet wounds, do you, wee viper?”
Irritated by that heinous nickname, I grind my molars. “I’ve lived all of my thirty-three years in the Mafia. What do you think?”
He quirks a brow. It turns to a smirk. Then he drawls, “So you’re thirty-three. Hmm.” He looks me up and down. “You don’t look a day over forty.”
“At least thirty-three is my age and not my IQ.”
“And at least I don’t have the personality of a cold toilet seat.”
“God, I wish you’d fall onto a hive of murder hornets. In the meantime, why don’t you go outside and see if you can miscount any more intruders? I’m going to check on my mother.”
As I walk away, headed to the kitchen, he calls out, “How do I get to the safe room?”
“Make two right turns at the end of that hall. You’ll hit a set of double wood doors. The stairway to the basement is behind them.”
I walk into the kitchen and flick on the overhead lights. Mamma sits at the table with an empty glass and a bottle of wine on the table in front of her. She’s got a small silver pistol in her left hand.
“Ah, stellina! Just in time—I’m out of wine.” She sets the gun down and pushes the empty wineglass toward me. “And no Cabernet, please. That stuff Homer likes is too dense.”
I mutter, “Like the man himself.”
Setting the rifle on the island, I pick up the house phone and dial down to the safe room. Gianni picks up on the first ring.
“It’s me. You’ve got Lili?”
“Yes, she’s safe.”
“I haven’t checked the cameras yet. What can you see?”
“The grounds are clear.”
“Good. So’s the house.”
“Leo’s on his way with more men.”
“How long until they get here?”
“Any minute.” A short pause follows. “Mr. Quinn saved your life.”
I can’t tell by his tone if he’s going to thank him or hate him for that. “I would’ve been fine without his help.”
He chuckles. “From what I could see, it didn’t look like it, sorellina.”
Little sister, little star, little viper…why does everyone insist on calling me little?
I’m fucking BIG!
And I certainly don’t need a bossy, overbearing, overconfident man-child with a dumb nickname and an even dumber matching tattoo to save my life. I can do it all by myself, thank you!
I blow out a breath, push my anger aside, and focus. “So who do you think they were?”
Gianni’s voice hardens. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll find out. What did they say to you?”
Both times I was confronted by the intruders, they spoke to me, which Gianni obviously saw as he watched on the security camera bank in the safe room. But there’s no audio feed, so he wouldn’t have been able to hear.
“They asked me where Lili was. Said they’d shoot me if I didn’t take them to her.”
Gianni curses under his breath. “I should’ve known.”
“Known what?”
“This joining of our families, the Mafia and the Mob…it’s made Lili a high-profile target.”
Realizing what he means, my stomach turns over. “For kidnapping.”
“Yes. Now I’m not the only one who’d pay a fortune to get her back. Mr. Quinn has a vested interest in her safety, too. Someone wanted to double his money.”
He pauses. His voice drops. “Or prevent the match completely.”
I know what he means without him having to spell it out.
There are plenty of people who’d be glad if the Mafia and the Mob remained enemies forever. By joining our houses, we’ve made powerful allies, but also put ourselves in the sights of those who’d be happier if we stayed at odds.
Lili’s not only in danger of kidnapping. She’s in danger of something far worse.
Murder, for instance.
My blood runs ice cold.
Gripping the phone so hard it shakes, I say, “Russians?”
“Doubtful. Declan O’Donnell has a tie to them. By blood.”
“The king of the Mob is related to the Russians? How?”
“His wife’s sister is pregnant by the boss of the Moscow Bratva.”
That’s shocking news. The Mob and the Bratva have been at each other’s throats for as long as I can remember. “How did that matchup ever happen?”
“By force. She was taken.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Exactly.”
Wonderful. So not only is Lili in danger of being kidnapped and held for ransom or killed to prevent the alliance altogether, she’s also in danger of being stolen and purposely impregnated so an alliance with some other third party would be forced.
She’s now on every mobster’s radar in the States.
And probably worldwide.
Fuming, I say, “Christ, Gianni! I told you not to make the match with this Irishman!”
“Don’t be so shortsighted. We’ll gain far more in the long run than the danger we face now. It’s just a turbulent period we have to navigate until the venture pays off.”
“You know this is your daughter we’re talking about, right? Your own flesh and blood? She’s not an investment in the damn stock market!”
Bored by my concern for his offspring, Gianni sighs. “We’ll come up when Leo arrives. Don’t let Mamma drink too much wine. She gets mouthy when she’s tipsy.”
He hangs up, leaving me growling.
“I’m dying of thirst over here, tesoro.” Mamma taps her empty glass with a fingernail.
I slam down the receiver on the phone and glare at her. “You raised an absolute asshole, you know that?”